The Interdependency Series: The Collapsing Empire, The Consuming Fire, The Last Emperox

by John Scalzi

This ebundle The Collapsing Empire, The Consuming Fire, and The Last Emperox.

“The Flow” — the naturally-occurring highway humans use to travel between the stars — is breaking down. It’s up to a starship owner, a scientist, and the Emperox of the Interdependency to race against the clock in order to salvage political control over the remaining connected human colonies. Snappy dialogue, dynamic action sequences, and political skullduggery — The Interdependency sequence is a galaxy-spanning science fiction adventure for the ages.

The Collapsing Empire : Faster than light travel is impossible—until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars. Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. The Flow is eternal—but it’s not static. When it’s discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals—a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency—must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

The Consuming Fire : The Interdependency is on the verge of collapse. Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are preparing for a civil war. The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire.

The Last Emperox : Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her. But “control” is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people from impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough. Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization . . . or the last emperox to wear the crown?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction

884 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2023

About the author

John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)

Reviews

[Casey Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall was fine, had some good parts, plot points were odd. Old Man's war and his newer single novels are much better.

[E Kummeneje · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ended up with 5 stars here, and that's basically just because of the final book. The others are solid 4/5s, bit the last one is just immensely enjoyable, with quite a few twist I really did not see coming. In general I also appreciated the very nuanced and varied, almost all-female cast throughout. Some of the very best I've read from Scalzi.

[Philippe Monfils · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice trilogy! Scalzi was able to achieve something almost unheard of: a trilogy where books do not double in size at each occurence...
Apart from this nice quirk : great & consistent story, really nice characters, excellent storytelling. Best books I read in a looong time!

[Philipp Schluter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of action, distributed space opera spread across several systems (galaxies?), hyperspace travel. Empire, insurrection, betrayal. Colourful language, some sharp humor.

[Jeffry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was good.

[Spencer Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So enjoyed these three books , so much more here. Stories and intrigue entwined … I keep going back to the last book and the last couple of chapters ❤️

[Christopher Czimskey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but I didn’t attach to any particular characters, and didn’t finish it.

[Shaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series was one of the two best things I read in 2022.

The Interdependency does not open with a vision of a radically better future. What it offers is mostly a cautionary tale which extrapolates contemporary trends into a distant future. There are brutal, zero-sum politics, norms are shredded, an environmental disaster of a sort menaces civilization, institutions aren't working well -- this may sound familiar.

  Scalzi’s treatment of how the various interlinked crises unfold, and how the Emperox deals with them, is polished and laced with acerbic humor. The plot breaks little new ground, but has enough wrinkles in it to keep the books fresh. The protagonists’ personalities get deeper and more interesting as the story goes on. Ultimately, Scalzi is simply a good writer, and the trilogy was a real pleasure to read.

I wrote a longer, stand-alone review of this on my own blog.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced, exciting, funny, engaging.

Lots of political intrigue, compelling characters and believable settings.

The whole idea of the "wormhole network" that holds the Empire together is a little magical, rather than scientific, but the story is grounded enough to stay interesting. The descriptions and characteristics of the spaceships are interesting and realistic.

Sort of like if "Dune" and "A Song of Ice and Fire" had been smooshed together with the "Expanse"
and "Risen Empire" series and condensed into a very taut thousand pages.

Absolutely recommended for anyone who likes a good space opera, or a multi-faceted political thriller.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love John Scalzi's work, but I felt that he could have gone deeper with this trilogy. He created quite an interesting universe, but didn't explore it as much as I would have liked. Despite this, I still really enjoyed reading it nonetheless.